What happens when you die as a follower of Jesus Christ? 2 Corinthians 5:1 reminds us that “if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” 2 Corinthians 5:8 tells us that, “absent from the body [is to] be present with the Lord.” Scripture refers to heaven more than five hundred times, the Book of revelation alone mentions heaven about fifty times. The Bible is very clear that heaven is an actual place, not a state of spiritual consciousness. We are reminded that it is a place, because some have gone there in glorified bodies, such as Enon in Genesis 5:24, Elijah in 2 Kings 2:11, and the Lord Jesus Christ in Acts 1:9. As we have already been reminded 2 Corinthians 5:8 That while heaven is far beyond the created world in another dimension, when believers die, they will be there immediately (cf. also Luke 23:43). We also are reminded in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 and 1 Corinthians 15:51-55 that a day will come when the Savior, Jesus Christ, will come back for His Bride, and all those who are a part of that Bride will be raised bodily and transported to heaven immediately. What a comfort it is to those who have lost their battle to the ravages of sin on the human flesh. For the follower of Jesus Christ, “death no more has a sting” (1 Corinthians 15:56). The comfort this brings is that we understand that our labor is not in vain in the Lord. Therefore, my friends, “let press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:10).
